I knew from a young age that there was something different about me. For better or for worse, I always thought I would take a path that diverged from my peers. Today I’m still on the road to becoming what I am meant to be, despite not knowing what that will be. However my freshman year still remains a weight on my shoulders, one I regret ever allowing to materialize. Fresh faced and excited, I entered my ninth grade year as a new (albeit masked) me. Having spent my eighth grade year doing “school” (if you could really call it that) from the lonely, but comfortable, couch cushions in my living room. I had never been so ready to face school, I needed it in my life again. The first day went by as first days do, mundane and introductory. It was the second day that changed me rather permanently. My friend from drafting class pulled me aside and told me “the seniors were talking about you”. I was a little confused at first. Why was I, a lost freshman, worth being the topic of their conversations? “Your height” she said. “They were joking about you being a boy who pretends to be a girl. They were calling you ‘it’.” I don’t remember a lot about that day, besides holding back tears while pretending to read a book in study hall. Everyone walked around as normal, me included, but inside I was sure that my life was over. I went home and couldn’t even tell my mom, I just showed her the texts. She and my dad tried to console me, but I couldn’t hear them. I sat alone on that very same couch, utterly defeated. I couldn’t go back, I wanted to disappear. I’d course, that isn’t an option, so I hid behind that mask for the next few months. School became low on my list of priorities, so naturally my grades began to slip. Why should I car about school when all I wanted to do is discard my body and be someone, anyone else? I don’t recall when that feeling faded, perhaps when I saw the boys after they’d forgotten all about me and realized they weren’t the all-knowing figures I imagined them to be. That my life wasn’t over. Even now it hurts to write about such an awful feeling. My parents divorced recently and I don’t remember being nearly as crushed. I look back now, a more confident person (though I still retain much room for improvement). However, as college looms nearer, the C’s I got that year begin to feel more bruising than they did way back when I earned them. I have it in my mind that there isn’t a single person at that school who can take my future from me like they almost did. I will pave my own way to college and they will be left behind, this is what propels me everyday I walk those halls. I don’t have room for mistakes. And thankfully, I haven’t had any real issues since then. My gpa may not be what it could’ve, but I wouldn’t be nearly as fortified had I not been battered I believe. I have always been raised with the notion that I can be whoever I want, and am able, to become. That freedom was never so apparent to me as it is now. Every test, paper, lecture, or quiz is just another board in the bridge I am building to that future. I thank myself and my mother everyday for not giving up that night. I know it will not be the last time I will have to push on into another day, not knowing what lay beyond the horizon.

My family’s history has always been the basis of my identity. Though I grew up disconnected from my family and the tribes at home (Mashintucket Pequot, Narragansett), I have always been filled with stories about my ancestors. Most notably I would sit in awe as my dad spoke of Massasoit, our many-greats grandfather whom has several statues in his image. I’ve gone to visit them, it’s an indescribable feeling to meet your grandfather as a 20 ft bronze man, a proud moment if I’ve ever had one. When I was very little I got to participate in my first powwow with my cousins. I had never felt so apart of something as I did surrounded by family, dancing in a circle, and draped with a beautiful purple blanket. Growing up in rural Ohio, I often had to sit through incorrect (and oftentimes offensive) portrayals of native history. My father always encouraged me to speak up, and whenever I could, I did. I felt as though if I never said anything, that would grow up believing these myths for generations more. Myths that my ancestors weren’t involved in a genocide, wiping away a devastating amount of our culture and history along with our people. My father dedicated his life to getting our family re-enrolled in the tribe. Many of us had died needing the community support and assistance from our tribe. Still, we had been enrolled for many generations until a new regulation was passed, eliminating the 1880 rolls that we were on. Still he spends his days cataloguing our genealogy. He can trace us back to Massasoit and many other ancestors from both the Pequot and Narragansett tribes. He’s written letters to the Secretary of the Interior (and gotten returned correspondence!). I plan to continue this fight someday when he is no longer able. I have always felt as though, despite living here since I was 6, Ohio isn’t my home. My home is Rhode Island, but also nearby Masssachusetts, Connecticut, and Block Island. There my name is more than a name, it’s a connection that runs hundreds of years deep. Descendant of the black and native Hazards of Rhode Island, I have pride everytime I write my name. I remind myself that I do belong somewhere, though it may not be Ohio. My first name come from my great-great-great grandmother, Violet Sands Hazard of Block Island. A native woman who lived on to reach (and surpass) 100. One day I hope to return to her home. My favorite memory as a small child was seeing my cousin, Annawon Weeden, in a book about the Eastern Woodlands native people, in my RURAL OHIO LIBRARY! I never stopped reminding my friends of my cousin and showing them his pictures in the book, I was absolutely amazed. Back then I always told anyone, when asked what I “am” (I look quite ethnically ambiguous) that I am proudly “the descendant of three tribes from the east coast, the Pequot, Narragansett, and Wampanoag peoples”. This identity will be one I hold in my heart until I die, and beyond. I know I will join my family history someday when I am buried with those ancestors, and be mentioned by people like my father in the history of our lineage. Proud is an understatement. This is my legacy.